


Red Like Toxin, Red Like Tonic

by e_cat



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, I don't think that came across, also it's maybe not exaclty probable in premise..., and Jeremy trying to respond to it, honestly this is pretty much Jean having a meltdown in the locker room, it was my intention that this be pre-jerejean, willing suspension of disbelief - I'm begging you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 19:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10287359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_cat/pseuds/e_cat
Summary: Jean is working on settling in with the Trojans. Some days are easier than others, and some days... don't go well at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> (Just pretend I understand how sports uniforms work.)
> 
> **A warning:** This is a pretty... bad time for Jean. It gets a little intense at times. Maybe a little self-destructive; some self-harm, disassociation. I don't know how to explain what I did to this poor guy. I'm so sorry.

“Yo, Moreau! Jeremy says it’s time to get a move on!”

That was what brought him back – Wong, freshman defensive dealer and Jean’s unofficial buddy. That was what Jeremy had called it, the buddy system, except that it wasn’t a system involving everybody. It was just Jean and Wong, and even if Jeremy assured him that it was temporary, that Wong needed it as much as he did, there were times that it made him feel ashamed to have another person witnessing his hardships.

Like now. Now, Jean had carved scratches up and down his arms with his own fingernails, and he couldn’t remember doing it. Now, Jean’s arms hung limply, bloodily by his sides, and he couldn’t remember how to use them. Now, Jean was drowning under the sick desire to be back at Evermore, because at least then he would know what sort of punishment was coming.

“Shit.”

Jean looked up, and there was Wong. Of course there was Wong; Jean had known he was coming. He just hadn’t completely processed what that meant. He couldn’t remember how to speak, either – he felt like something in him had been flattened and his voice had been inside of it. He willed Wong to forget what he’d seen, to forget how damaged Jean was. His expression felt pathetic.

“I’m getting Jeremy,” Wong said, but it came out more like a question. Jean wanted to tell him not to. He wanted to say that they were partnered, that Wong would suffer for Jean’s mistakes – _no_. He had to remember that this place didn’t work like that. He had to remember – he had to remember –

_Gold._ Gold, he could cling to. Gold meant that he was in California, not West Virginia. Gold meant that he was… safe? Maybe. Maybe safe. He had to remember.

“I’m getting Jeremy,” Wong repeated, more certain this time. He hesitated, though, at the threshold to the changing room. “Can I leave you alone?”

In reply, Jean sunk to the locker room floor. In a slightly more perfect world, he would leave the second Wong was out of sight, take advantage of the Trojans’ more liberal attendance policy to suffer in private. In this world, however, Jean didn’t think his legs were capable of taking him anywhere further than the common room, and he didn’t particularly want to go there.

Wong was gone in a second, leaving behind an echoing promise to be right back that Jean wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined. Everything felt so imaginary. He felt like he could die right now, and what meaning would it have? What meaning did anything have? He couldn’t feel anything except for the stinging scratches and the cold floor beneath him. And the color red.

_No, no,_ Jean thought desperately, _don’t go back._ But he was already choking on it, being buried alive in it. His eyes were locked on the edge of his red uniform. It didn’t matter that his skin beside it was less pale and less bruised than it had been with the Ravens. It didn’t matter that the lettering was gold and not black. It didn’t matter that he knew that he was in California, that he knew the jersey wasn’t number 3, that he was… safe?

He couldn’t hold onto any of it. Every reassurance he could give himself slipped through his grasp like blood through his fingers. All he knew was that he was wearing Raven red, and he had fallen behind. Riko was going to be disappointed, and that meant that he was going to be punished. Riko was going to hurt him when they got back. Riko was going to make him hurt himself. Riko was –

“Hey, hey.” Jeremy was there, suddenly, gently holding Jean’s hands still. “It’s okay,” Jeremy said, but Jean didn’t think it was. There were scratches on his legs now, but he didn’t remember making them. His fingers were shaking. They felt tainted. _He_ felt tainted. He realized that his lips were forming the shape of pleas in Japanese, and he let out a strangled laugh over it. He must have well and truly broken, he thought, if he’d gone back to begging for mercy. He hadn’t bothered for so long.

Jean looked up past Jeremy, and his eyes found Wong, hovering. He met Jean’s eyes, and something he saw there must have scared him, because again he said, “Shit.” Or had he said it earlier? Jean couldn’t really connect the memory to be sure.

Jeremy looked over his shoulder at Wong. “Go back to practice,” he said. “Tell Laila I won’t be back.”

Wong disappeared, and then it was just Jeremy. Somehow, just Jeremy seemed worse than having two witnesses. Maybe it was the way Jeremy was still holding his hands steady, the way he was looking at him – like he was afraid Jean was going to hurt himself more if he let go.

Jeremy was searching, Jean realized after maybe too long a silence. He was looking for some hint in Jean’s eyes that he was at least aware of what was going on. What did it even mean to be aware, really? Was Jean aware? He didn’t know.

“What do you want to do?” Jeremy asked finally. Jean’s eyes flicked to his, and just that was apparently enough for Jeremy to relax his grip on Jean’s hands. After a minute without a verbal answer – Jean didn’t think he could manage one – Jeremy tried again. “Do you want to go?”

Go? Jean nodded. Yes, he wanted to go. Or, no – he didn’t want to go; he didn’t want to anything. He wanted to cease to exist, if that was an option. Maybe this was progress, though, because he didn’t want that to be permanent. He just needed a break from the world – a minute or a year to be without this awful burden of being human – but he wanted to come back after. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted that before.

“Hey,” Jeremy said, so gently that Jean couldn’t understand how both Jeremy and the rest of the ugly world could exist at the same time. “What do you want to do, Jean?” Jeremy asked again, which made Jean realize that he had been shaking his head. He felt bad for being contradictory like that, saying yes and then no. He felt like everything about him was contradictory. He was a contradiction to life itself.

“I don’t want to be a Raven,” Jean found himself mumbling. It was so self-destructive a sentiment – it was begging for Riko to grind him into the floor. It was basically giving up, because if Jean wasn’t a Raven, he wouldn’t be alive. Riko would never let him.

“Jean,” Jeremy said, again so gentle, pulling him back to the present. Jeremy and Riko literally didn’t exist in the same world. They couldn’t; they were too opposite. Jeremy was everything that Jean had never let himself believe the world could contain. Riko was every hyper-real horror that Jean had lived or thought he would live. There was such a deep chasm between the two that it ached in Jean’s chest to even think of them both at the same time.

But it hadn’t been that way before, had it? The Ravens had played the Trojans so many times. Riko had broadcast every press conference that Jeremy or any Trojan or Lion captain had ever given, the rest of the team tearing into every word like scraps of meat as they critiqued everything from strategy to wardrobe. It had never bothered Jean so much before. He’d never had so much trouble believing that the world could be constructed of such opposites.

“Jean,” Jeremy repeated, dragging him back yet again. He couldn’t seem to stay tethered to reality, like he was watching the events of now on a television screen, but he was physically trapped in the prison of somewhere else. He clawed his way up to reality again and again, but every time, he just slid right back down.

“Sorry,” he managed to choke out. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Jeremy said. “Nothing to apologize for. You’re back.” He built a bridge with his unconvincing smile. Jean wanted so badly to cross it, but he was afraid it would give way underneath him. He didn’t have enough of himself left to reinforce it with his own tongue.

Another quiet minute passed, Jean only just managing to stay present. He watched Jeremy watching his face, looking for whatever it was that he wanted or didn’t want to find. If he was waiting to be sure that Jean didn’t go back to that same untethered, dark place, Jean didn’t think he had enough energy left to even fall into it.

“Is your appointment tomorrow?” Jeremy asked finally. Jean nodded, even though he knew that Jeremy already knew it was. Twice a week, like clockwork. If nothing else, it was something to keep him from constantly feeling like time was imaginary. Even when everything in between felt nebulous and false, there was that appointment to keep, that next rung on the ladder. He didn’t know where it was going, but at least he felt like it was taking him somewhere.

“I can come with you,” Jeremy offered haltingly. “If you need someone – want someone – with you.”

It was almost enough to get Jean to smile. “I think I can handle Dr. Núñez on my own,” he said, and watched the split second of confusion that always flitted over anyone’s face when he referred to the younger of the team’s two therapists by title. Everyone else just called her Rita or, for no reason that Jean could discern, Mrs. Butterworth.

Jeremy nodded in an automatic sort of way, like he was too busy thinking ahead to something else to confirm with himself that he really meant to agree. Sure enough, his next thought came out like it had been waiting in line long enough to rethink itself over and over: careful, like testing out the legs it stood on. “Has Rita ever mentioned to you about seeing someone else?”

“You mean a different therapist.” Jean was distressed. He liked Dr. Núñez – he liked how she didn’t pressure him to talk or make big changes; he liked how she locked the door but opened the window; he liked how he was starting to feel just a few inches closer to trusting her, maybe a quarter of the way to comfortable. All of that had taken more than two months of careful attention on Dr. Núñez’s part, of struggling against himself on Jean’s. He didn’t want to start over. Part of him didn’t believe he’d ever be able to make it to this point again.

“You don’t have to,” Jeremy said quickly, having noticed the panic of Jean’s expression. “I just thought – maybe there’s a specialist who could –” He shook his head. “You were doing so well.”

This, Jean understood, was Jeremy’s way of asking what had happened without really asking. Jean could easily pretend he hadn’t heard the question. He could easily look down at his hands like he was ashamed, which would be partially true, and have Jeremy feeling guilty for days. But he didn’t want to do that. To Jean’s surprise, he actually wanted to explain – not out of some misplaced need to _explain himself_ , but out of a genuine desire to be known. He hadn’t realized there could be such a difference between the two.

“We did the same thing,” Jean told him, pinching at the edge of his shorts. “Not – not for regular practices; we couldn’t wear whichever uniform for that. But for scrimmages. We split in half on jersey color. Riko always kept black. But –” He looked down again at the red uniform he’d put on for the first time today. He didn’t, couldn’t say that red uniform days had been the worst, that the balance of both being a good backliner and not being better than Riko was an impossible one. His mouth wouldn’t make the words.

Jeremy seemed to understand anyways. “You should have – could have – said something. I would have switched you.”

Jean stared at him flatly. He didn’t think he needed to say it, but obviously he was going to have to get used to the red uniform eventually. And as much as this had sucked, it was better that it happened now rather than before a game. Jean waited in silence for Jeremy to reach the same conclusion.

Finally, Jeremy sighed. Jean expected him to try saying something else supportive or uplifting, but instead, he simply stated, “You’re starting second half, our first game out. We’re away at San Diego.”

Immediately, Jean understood what Jeremy was offering. All he had to do was ask, and they would wear the away uniforms. Or, if he thought he could handle it, here was the perfect opportunity to turn the red uniform into a triumph. If it turned out that he was wrong, they could always pull him at the last minute.

“I’ll check in with you about it later,” Jeremy said. “Okay?”

Jean nodded gratefully. Really, holding off on deciding was probably the best course of action. It gave him some time to try this again, to maybe get used to it. He would rather make it work with the red, but he couldn’t be sure that he would be able to handle it. Not yet, at least.

“All right,” Jeremy confirmed with himself. He held out a hand. “What do you say we change out and take Rita for ice cream?”

He hesitated a moment. Jean of two months ago would have had several objections already on his tongue, where they’d been sunk in with barbed hooks over the years. Jean today, however, felt the words and didn’t say them. Today, Jean returned Jeremy’s grin, took his hand, and started brainstorming reasons to reject his horrific flavor-combo suggestions.

Today, Jean felt just a little bit more Trojan than Raven.


End file.
